OrdinaryPerson
Most Mediocrest
- Joined
- Nov 30, 2022
- Posts
- 13,297
That's horrible. I'm glad she has someone that cares enough to try to make her day a little better even though I'm sure the experience is tough on you.Sorry for the ensuing rambling, but I don’t have a therapist and I don’t feel comfortable spewing to friends out of nowhere.
I work in a field where I recently met a teenage girl who was being held in juvenile detention in a facility about an hour away. She was extroverted and charming and sensitive. She had been held in detention for 3 weeks waiting for rehab because that was the agreement after she’d violated the terms of her juvenile probation by testing positive for marijuana after a charge for possessing marijuana.
The rural facility she was being held at was unforgivable. I’ve never seen a facility so poorly kept for anyone, let alone children. 2 full time workers…one was a janitor who seemed kind and the other was something akin to the headmistress in the Matilda movie, just in a stained T-shirt and jeans. For 3 weeks, she’s been held with only 2 other people…and all 3 of them are only let out of their room/bathroom for 2 hours a day.
After meeting her last week, I felt so terribly for her that I called the facility to ask if I could bring a friend to come see her and bring little Caesar’s for all the staff and the (now 4) detainees. “Sure,” I was told.
I drove the hour up there, after picking up her friend and her friend’s grandma 30-minutes away. The three of us picked up little Caesar’s in the accompanying county because the only thing in the county are dollar generals, and I drove it to them.
The head of the facility that I’d spoken to wasn’t there. She didn’t pick up her phone. So, while I, her friend, and her friend’s grandmother waited with 4 pizzas, wings, and breadsticks…4 detainees and 2 staff sat in this cinderblock, boys locker room of a home, and contemplated why they were in a position that they couldn’t have a piece of pizza without an okay from someone else.
Her friend, her grandmother, and I left at 5:30 when it became clear that no one was going to allow us to talk to that seemingly sweet girl. None of us could even mention we’d come to see her since visitation was so tightly-regimented in this podunk town that a “hi” or “hello” couldn’t be affected without one person’s okay.
This will be my project all week long.
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